Il Principe
by sweetAnonimitie
Summary: In which Erwin sells his soul to the devil in a literal pun against (and for) Machiavellian reason.


"My my, this is all very dark."

Erwin heard a hand trail across his desk, papers whispering to each other in alarm as it passed.

"I combat titans by any means necessary." His tone was level, the commander yet to so much as turn to acknowledge the visitor. Remarkable, given that the office had been empty a split second before.

"Hm, so you tout. You'll excuse me if this looks to me more like the facetious pastimes of an occult-crazed adolescent." The visitor was testing him.

"I'll admit, the execution was clumsy at best. But the idiosyncrasies of the subject itself did not interest me in the slightest."

"The ends, then." a low sound in the visitor's throat like a chuckle. "Humor me once more: what is it - _precisely_ \- that you were attempting to accomplish?"

"A summons." the words, spoken so lightly, took on a darkness of their own as they plummeted past his lips into the abyss of the room.

The visitor's tone darkened, "And with what means?"

"I suppose you already know that." humor bonded with impatience under the tyranny of the commander's impeccable self-control.

"It must be offered." the visitor shrugged.

"My immortal soul." Erwin stated without hesitation.

"Perhaps," said the visitor, "Perhaps; but you've yet to divulge what you hope to gain by your- shall we say sacrifice?" He was being teased, though cleverly enough that it flowed seamlessly with the conversation, a convention of the other's speech.

"Power." the word was uncharacteristically blunt on a gilded tongue, and rang harsh to his own ears. "That is what every human wants, is it not?" The visitor made no response to his rhetorical accusation, and so Erwin carried on. "What I crave is the power to liberate us from the fate of the powerless. From extinction, from genocide, from fear. I require a weapon unlike any that have come before, to do what nothing before has been able: to turn the tide of this losing war." Erwin turned around, and upon looking into the face of hell his fate was sealed, "For this, I will willingly sacrifice my soul."

"An idealist," the harbringer remarked.

"A realist," replied Erwin with unrepentant confidence.

"In the most Machiavellian sense of the word," the demon mused. "A contract it is."

Erwin nodded. He did not offer his hand. The harbinger mirrored his minimizing gesture with a mocking flit of its lips. It was done.

The commander stepped back behind his desk, resuming his seat as though nothing had passed. "Now there is the question of specifics."

"The devil in the details?" the creature quirked a brow at the unintentional jest.

"If you must call it that," the commander winced, though it was clear from the tone of the utterance that the poor excuse for a joke pained him more than the loss of his soul. "I have reason to believe that the populace might respond - _adversely_ \- to your existence."

"With good reason," the visitor remarked.

"Indeed," the commander echoed ominously. "And I assume it is obvious that you are to do nothing without my express command."

"I shouldn't have to remind you, Commander, that words have power. You stated that I was to be a weapon. A sword does not move without a hand to guide it; it is about as deadly as a stone and just as inanimate."

"A thought to cherish," Erwin said, with the faintest hint of derision. Subtlety was a wicked edge honed into his speech by years of whetting.

"Till death I do you impart," the creature drawled. Already losing interest in the verbal parry, apparently.

Erwin simply ignored the halfhearted rebuttal, "The first order of business, as ever, are appearances. Yours will have to adequately reflect your position without raising undue suspicion."

Erwin glanced up at a weight on his desk, and his brows met. The harbinger had chosen the form of an inhumanly attractive female, decked ironically in a parody of a uniform to match his own, but lacking all modesty, and lounged across his desk in an extremely suggestive manner.

"That will not do."

"Hm? Well, my position is _under_ you. Tell me, are your _suspicions_ raised?" The hellborn monstrosity was definitionally without shame. It was mocking him yet, but the commander would not play along.

"If you've had any exposure to humans at all, which I more than suspect that you have, you will know that there is nothing barring bloodshed more noticeable than physical beauty. Since your express purpose is one then you must sacrifice the other."

"What, like yourself?" the demon jibed, but obliged readily. Its form seemed to shimmer like heat and the commander found himself looking across the desk at a now-properly-uniformed soldier well within the range of human beauty (if still on the upper cusp of it). Erwin did not press the matter, however. He knew from experience that an appearance could be a useful tool: humans, vain creatures, are far more forgiving of a vice if it comes in a pretty face.

"Whom should I be to you? A friend; an admirer; a sister; a lover?" Her eyes ripped through a kaleidoscope of colors with her words.

"A cousin, I should think, would arouse the fewest questions." It was intimacy without intrigue, closeness without connection.

"Very well, _cousin_." And Erwin found himself looking into his own unnervingly blue eyes. Eerily, his own eyes stared back, and for one deeply unsettling moment Erwin experienced what it was to be the recipient of his own icy gaze, before the eyes blinked, and he managed to remove himself mentally. These were no longer his eyes; they belonged to an individual now. She was pretty, with subtle features that seemed crafted to emphasize the statement of startlingly blue eyes. Which, upon reflection, Erwin supposed they were; the demon calling attention to its own clever mockery. Framing its legitimacy claim for point of emphasis. Indeed, the dark hair hovering over them in overgrown fringes seemed a blatantly engineered contrast. More striking even than his own complexion. Cousins; what a convincing parody the harbinger made. She shared his height if not his imposing demeanor; his reserve if not his quiet. Certainly, this would do; but at what cost to his sanity, he wondered?

"Caterina Sforza Riario," deliberacy laced every syllable.

"I beg pardon?"

"My name," stated the demon, humor playing at its lips, "or would it be better if I took Smith?"

"It would certainly presuppose any tedious guessing." the name rang familiar. Erwin didn't know and couldn't be bothered at the moment to puzzle at where. He knew he was being mocked, but dismissed it.

"Catarina Smith, then." the harbinger concluded briskly, the lyricism of the given name blunted by the last. Erwin was not immune to the irony of a given name that was not given but taken.

"I'll draw up some papers."

"No need," she extended a stack with a hand that had previously been empty. "These are the documents of my transfer into your unit, which I assume you will take the liberty to sign. The rest should be in their proper locations at the records department." The creature looked at him with a predatory cruelness in its eyes that never faded, only became more pronounced alongside this little show of power.

"Hardly an explicit order," he remarked dangerously.

"The spirit of the law, commander. I would hardly be effective if every nuance must be issued as dictation. I can intuit your express desires, and act accordingly."

"Within bounds." Erwin confirmed.

"Of course," the creature pledged, though as with anything that passed its lips it did not seem wholly sincere.

"I suppose that will have to be good enough, for the time being."

"'Good' has nothing to do with our bargain." the creature gave grim reminder, though it seemed to find the statement humorous. Erwin did not. His frown deepened somewhat.

"Is something remiss, _cousin_?" the creature was suddenly beside him, an arm about his shoulders in a mockery of human affection.

"Why don't you _intuit_ my response to that." Erwin stated coldly. The harbinger shrugged. It knew the answer.

"Don't bring it up a third time." Erwin commanded. The demon gave no assent, but its embrace remained mere 'cousinly'. Erwin briskly gathered the occultish papers off his desk, product of a year's work, and delivered them promptly to the wastebasket. He deliberated on a whim whether to set them on fire, but just as quickly concluded that such an ostentatious display would do more to draw attention to the evidence than actually destroy it. So for a time, he simply stood. A foolish man might even have mistaken the reverie for prayer.

It was the same expression that he wore on the day of his execution, as confident before the crowd as he had been in command of it: untouched by remorse or the signs of his long imprisonment- though be it said that distance did wonders for both. Erwin marked with hollow satisfaction that the crowd hissed his name with the vitality of a bloodlust it had never before had. Because now they are winning, and it is so easy to cheer for the winner.


End file.
